Alveolo-palatal ejective fricative
Consonantal sound
 |
The alveolo-palatal ejective fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨ɕʼ⟩.
| alveolo-palatal ejective fricative | |
|---|---|
| ɕʼ | |
| Audio sample | |
| File:Alveolo-palatal ejective fricative.ogg | |
| Encoding | |
| X-SAMPA | s\_> |
Features
Features of the alveolo-palatal ejective fricative:
- Its manner of articulation is fricative, which means it is produced by constricting air flow through a narrow channel at the place of articulation, causing turbulence.
- Its place of articulation is alveolo-palatal. This means that:
- Its place of articulation is postalveolar, meaning that the tongue contacts the roof of the mouth in the area behind the alveolar ridge (the gum line).
- Its tongue shape is laminal, meaning that it is the tongue blade that contacts the roof of the mouth.
- It is heavily palatalized, meaning that the middle of the tongue is bowed and raised towards the hard palate.
- Its phonation is voiceless, which means it is produced without vibrations of the vocal cords.
- It is an oral consonant, which means air is allowed to escape through the mouth only.
- It is a central consonant, which means it is produced by directing the airstream along the center of the tongue, rather than to the sides.
- The airstream mechanism is ejective (glottalic egressive), which means the air is forced out by pumping the glottis upward.
Occurrence
| Language | Word | IPA | Meaning | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Adyghe | Abzakh | щӏэ | [ɕʼa] | 'new' | Dialectal. Corresponds to [t͡ʃʼ] in other dialects. |
| Kabardian | пщӀы | 'ten' | |||